Totally off topic: The end of an era -- goodbye Law and Order

r.i.p.

Today I received an email about how to reset my Twitter account password and panicked because I hadn't asked to reset it. So I figured someone's trying to get into it (for the life of me I don't know why because I barely use it and then only for book-related things) and went to see if I made any postings I didn't know about in case I had been hacked (which I didn't). However, I was scanning down the tweets I've missed in the last couple of days and someone from Living Social (where I use Visual Bookshelf from Facebook) posted that Law and Order was being canceled. I'm like "WHAT??????????" and clicked on the link for the New York Times that the person left. Imagine my surprise when I found out that this was not just another rumor, but the truth.

Many people wrote in to the NYT  (myself included) to bemoan L&O's fate, and I read one comment there that said  "get a grip...it's just a tv show." While that may be the case, and while the loss of one long-running show may not change how the Earth spins on its axis or make me want to jump out of a window or something, it's still one of my favorites and I'm not alone in that category.

Let me just say that this is definitely the end of an era, not just for Law and Order, but for me as well. I can honestly with no hesitation whatsoever say that there is absolutely nothing left for me to watch on any of the big three original networks. Now that L&O is going away, there won't be a need to look at the on-screen directory to see what's on the regular network channels; it's only cable channels and PBS that will be on in the house when I'm ready to sit down for some television watching. I feel like something of a certain quality and intelligence has been taken away and I'm a wee bit sad -- after all of the many years of watching this show, I'm going to miss it. And to the powers that be at NBC....I have just one question: what were you thinking???????????

Goodbye, Jack McCoy and the DA's staff; see you later, Lt. Van Buren and all of New York's finest working with you -- it's been a pleasure.  You will all be missed. To the actors who played all of these people throughout the years...you rock. Thank you. To everyone connected with producing the show, well, you was robbed by the network.

Used books are great, but not when they're supposed to be new.

Larry and I went to our local Barnes and Noble yesterday to pick up a few books for him to read on our upcoming cruise (yes, another one).  While he was over perusing what B&N stocks as far as Jefferson Bass, I was prowling the new fiction shelves and I picked up Craig Nova's book The Informer (on the wishlist forever) opened it up to page one, and the first thing I saw was a torn page, bottom right corner. Guess what else I saw on that page -- fingerprints that looked like someone had eaten a chocolate-chip cookie and forgot to clean their hands. To add to my woes, that was the only copy B&N actually had in stock. So what if I had wanted to buy it? Okay, I did (I figure buying a cruise read is a good excuse for breaking the self-imposed ban on buying books) but there was no way I was going to buy that particular copy.  How are they going to sell it?

I'm just standing there in a bit of shock, and Larry comes back to find me. I show him the book and start to tell him my opinion on readers who take their cappucinos, chocolate-chip cookies and a clean new book back to the comfy chairs to read and don't bother to clean their hands while doing it. As I'm launching into my tempest in a teapot tirade, a guy grabs a trade paperback off the shelf, sits down with his coffee and starts reading in the chair, and bends the cover all the way back so that only one page is showing.  You know darn well that when his coffee's finished, he's going to stick that book back on the shelf, now with a creased spine.Oh, the horror of it all.

So please people, if you're going to spend a quiet Saturday morning at the bookstore, taking care of your coffee fix and test driving a novel, please be clean about it. And for Pete's sake, please try to think of other people who may actually want to BUY the book you've just bent back or because you forgot to take a napkin with your cookie, you've left chocolate fingerprints on. If I wanted a used book, I'd have gone to a bookstore where I know the books have already been read, and even then, I wouldn't pick up the food-stained ones.

I just got flew in from New Jersey and boy are my arms tired.

But seriously folks, between the cruise and my nephew's bar mitzvah celebration up in Cherry Hill NJ, I'm seriously beat.  I think we were home a total of two days after the cruise before we left to go up north so not only am I tired, but I'm seem to be lagging behind. I'm not even going to post "It's Monday, What Am I Reading" until tomorrow, although normally I'm on it first thing on Monday mornings.  Oh well.

Seeing family is always a good time, and to make things even better, my daughter became engaged this week! How cool is that?

tomorrow then.

reading angst

 

These two books, the  gritty Swedish novel Box 21 and the offbeat British book Little Hands Clapping, have given me much food for thought, and I don't mean in terms of the plots. It's like I look at a lot of the books I've been picking up and collecting over the years and they seem so plain.  It's like when you exercise your butt off but you stop losing weight -- when you reach a sort of plateau where you have to crank up your workout a notch or two to see some results. I think I've reached my reading plateau and it's time for something more challenging. I figured this out after having just finished No Birds Singing.  I was sitting here wondering to myself if I'm even going to finish the series because I can pretty much predict how the books are all going to come out.  This happened to me a few years ago when I used to be an avid fan of James Patterson's Alex Cross series, and then it got to the point where the books became so formulaic that I found I couldn't pick one up any more. Same happened with the Women's Murder Club series.  I just couldn't do it any more. Many other authors went by the wayside as well.  Life will not last as long as the books on tbr pile will. Now I'm discovering that some of my beloved British mysteries are heading that way, and it really bothers me, because for years and years they've been my favorites. Now it's time to be thinking of a new reading direction but it may take some time to figure it out.

Wednesday random thoughts

 subtitled: I haven't read anything new yet, but feel like writing something.

Robert B. Parker
I went to the torture queen early this morning (my personal trainer) and was greeted upon my homecoming with the news of Robert B. Parker's death. My husband Larry has probably read the entire Spenser series, which he likes, and he says that Spenser and his girlfriend Susan had a relationship like ours. Hmmm. Having not ever read the series myself ( I only really own The Godwulf Manuscript which is as yet unread) I can't swear that that's the case. But Larry loved his books;and Parker will definitely be missed in this house.

The Edgar Award Nominees Have Been Chosen and I have a favorite

This year, one of my favorite books ever has been chosen as a nominee: Nemesis, by Jo Nesbø. Nesbø's main character is Harry Hole (pronounced Hole-ah) -- and his adventures start in the book Redbreast.  It's hard to say which is the better of the two, but they both are fantastic. If you're looking for an intense read by an amazing Scandinavian author, I highly recommend both books.  I haven't read the third book in the series, The Devil's Star, yet, because I started with the Harper hardbacks with the first two and due to some quirk of my nature, I must have matching books in each series.  More about that another time. Anyway, the Harper hardcover edition of The Devil's Star will be arriving in March, so I've had that sucker pre-ordered with Amazon forever.  It will actually get here right after I get home from my March cruise, so that's sweet. You can see what's been nominated here. I like Harry Hole better than Kurt Wallander, and if you knew me, you would know that that statement says a lot.


Another take on the Frankenstein classic, but this time from a very distinguished (and favorite) author.


Today I start a book called The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein, by Peter Ackroyd. I'm a fan of Ackroyd's fiction -- sadly (and quite shamefully, I'm sure), I've never read any of his nonfiction. Books I've read by this author are

• The Trial of Elizabeth Cree -  (my edition is this one), a combination of a mystery, historical fiction and subtle social commentary all set in the Victorian period. 
• Hawksmoor  (my edition) - a novel about an architect in 18th century London who builds several churches and then a time switch to the present, when several murders have been committed at the churches the architect built.  This one is more of a postmodern novel, but very readable and enjoyable. 
• Chatterton - (my edition) another historical novel, about Thomas Chatterton, who lived during the 18th century and was a master forger.  This one also spans the centuries and is again another postmodern piece of writing. It's mystery-ish, but one to read slowly. It was also nominated for the Booker Prize in 1987.
  
• The House of Doctor Dee (my edition) about a modern-day guy who comes to live in John Dee's home, where strange things start to happen to him. John Dee is one of my favorite real-life fictional characters.
  

So anyway, I bought Casebook of Victor Frankenstein when it first came out in 2009 and have yet to read it, so I'm really looking forward to it.

That's about it. I'm busy thinking up possible reading topics for February, going through what's available for pre-order from Amazon without putting my AMEX on overload, trying to not step on all of the books on the floor waiting to be shelved, and yada yada yada. Hopefully I'll be back soon with my review of Ackroyd's new book.